The Best Chicken Breast You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality) _ Epicurious 101

I'm Frank Proto , a professional chef and culinary instructor .

And today I'm gonna show you how to make a perfectly juicy chicken breast .

Frank style .

We're talking succulent delicious chicken breast .

Not that dry stringy stuff that your grandma serves .

This is chicken breast .

101 chicken breast doesn't need to be dry and stringy with a little bit of knowledge .

A little bit of technique .

It could be juicy and delicious .

Every single time in front of me , I have two different chicken breasts .

One is a little smaller .

One is a little larger .

I try and go for the smaller ones .

I feel like they're more tender .

They have a better texture .

This chicken breast , I'm gonna leave alone .

This chicken breast needs a little work before we can put it in the pan .

I'm gonna take this chicken breast and I'm just gonna get my chef knife , put a flat hand on top and I kind of cut it right down the center .

You'll notice that when I put my hand on top , my thumb is kind of pointed up , my fingers are pointed up .

I'm just putting light pressure down .

That light pressure will make it easier to cut .

And now we basically have two chicken breasts from the one I feel like this is a better size to cook .

If it's too thick , it takes a little longer .

You get dry ends and the center is usually a little pink .

So this way , it's gonna cook much more evenly .

Some people will tell you pound this out with a meat mallet .

I don't really like to do that because I want my chicken breast to be nice and brown .

And if I pound it out and then saute it , it's gonna be way overcooked by the time it's ready to eat when it comes to seasoning chicken breasts .

I'm a minimalist .

Salt and pepper .

Only spice rubs tend to burn when you saute them .

When you're sauteing a chicken breast , you wanna make sure that before you put it in the pan , you get a paper towel and pat it dry .

That extra moisture will stop our chicken from browning .

So get all that excess moisture off before you put it in the pan .

When I season , I use Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper .

Whenever you season , you want to start really high .

If I was to season like this , you get little spots of salt .

If you season high , you get a nice even distribution of salt pepper .

Go a little bit on a fine grind with this and then we can turn it over and season the other side .

You wanna season both sides chicken season ready to go .

Let's cook .

I have a stainless steel saute pan in front of me .

I like these because they're a bit of a thicker gauge .

They're heavy bottom , stainless steel saute pan .

If you have a thin saute pan , what happens is you get burnt spots and undercooked spots .

I like to use cast iron for a lot of things like this .

But when I'm doing a pan sauce , I don't like cast iron because believe it or not , it gets a little of that flavor from the pan .

Why you stay on the steel ?

There is no flavor transfer from the pan to the sauce .

When sauteing , you want high temperature for a shorter amount of time .

You see , I put salt on this chicken breast salt draws out moisture .

So before we go in the pan again , you want to dab this to make sure they're not wet .

This way , we ensure proper browning .

My pan is getting hot .

I like to use a neutral high smoked point oil .

We're just using a vegetable oil here .

I don't use fancy oils for this because once they go in the pan , all the flavor disappears and you can see right away .

It looks like waves .

It looks kind of shimmery and that's what I want .

If there's a little bit of smoke , that's a good thing .

I'm gonna dab off my chicken breasts and then when I drop them in the pan , I'm dropping away from myself .

If I drop it towards myself , I'm getting splashed with oil .

If I drop it away from myself , I am not getting splashed with oil to lower my heat down .

A little .

Don't be afraid to adjust your heat if you have to .

Right now .

I feel like I have the right amount of heat .

I took a quick peek underneath to see that I was browning .

My chicken wasn't sticking .

But for the most part , at this point , you want to just leave it alone .

Let the saute pan do its work .

Don't mess around , don't move it around too much .

You can check occasionally to see how you're doing right .

We're getting some nice browning in there .

Don't mess around with it too much .

Leave it alone .

I have a little bit of a dry spot here because the pan is a little boat in the middle .

So the oil kind of went to the edges .

So you'll notice that I always want my chicken breast to be sitting in the oil .

What this does is I don't have high spots and low spots .

My chicken cooks nice and even on the surface , what I'm looking for here is that we have a nice golden brown on that side .

Look at that .

That's beautiful .

And then what I'm doing is I'm poking my chicken breast .

I know that it's raw .

But as they poke onto it , it's super soft and as it cooks to the right temperature .

It's going to go from super soft and kind of spongy to being really bouncy .

And that's what I'm looking for .

The texture of it .

Right .

I don't want it to be soft and spongy .

I want it to kind of bounce back really nice .

You'll notice that I only have two breasts in here .

I have a third .

But I think that if I put too many in the pan , it's going to overcrowd the pan .

What happens basically is it starts to steam , steam is moisture and then your chicken breast does not get brown .

So don't overcrowd your pan .

I feel like this chicken breast is ready to go if you touch it .

It's got some nice bounciness to it .

I'm going to take it out and put it onto my resting rack .

This piece is a little thicker .

It needs a little more time .

You notice that I use my fingers because I have chef hands .

You can always just push down with tongs to see how your bounciness is .

Most people say that chicken breast needs to be cooked about 16 five in order for it to be fully cooked .

I find if chicken breast gets cooked to 165 it's dry .

I tend to go about 151 150 five because they will continue to cook .

When you put them over here .

It's called carry over cooking .

If you're really unsure about when to take it off .

You can always use a thermometer .

I kind of go by touch and feel , even if it's a little pink or a little underdone , we can always reheat it before we put the sauce on it .

Right now .

I'm getting some nice good bring back .

I'm gonna take this out and let it rest .

I put my chicken on the resting rack so the meat can kind of equalize the juices can redistribute and we'll have a nice juicy chicken breast .

So you can see my chicken breast is nice and brown .

It's got some nice caramelization and that equals flavor .

I have some of my juices running off .

I can always reclaim those if I want .

Part of the reason why chicken breast is so easy to mess up is because it's a super lean cut of meat .

There's little to no fat on it .

Unless you keep the skin , it's gonna be a dry piece of meat .

So cooking it properly is where it's at for our chicken breast .

Today , we're gonna do a super simple pan sauce that anyone can make .

You don't need to be a culinary genius to get this right .

If you're sauteing chicken breast , a pant sauce is your friend in restaurants .

Pant sauces don't really get made because they take a lot of time .

But this is a great for the home cook .

The star of the show here is that fond and that is really necessary for a good pan sauce .

A fond is all the caramelized juices in the bottom of the pan .

It's super flavorful .

It's gonna give color to your sauce .

Uh and it's just gonna make it taste great .

So my pan is getting hot .

I'm gonna put just a little bit of fresh oil .

Not a lot .

So I have about a couple of shallots here .

Diced nice and fine .

So you'll notice that I cook my shallots a little before I add my garlic .

I have a couple of cloves of garlic .

There pans a little dry .

So I'm just gonna add a little more oil because I want these to sizzle and get nice and caramelized and brown .

So now my garlic and shallots are nice and brown .

I'm gonna add chicken stuff .

It stops the cooking of my shallots and garlic and that's gonna be the main flavor base .

We're gonna reduce .

This down reduction is a really great way to get flavor chicken stock by itself isn't super flavorful .

But if you reduce it , you get a really nice chicken flavor .

It's probably gonna take about 7 to 8 minutes to reduce .

You gotta be patient here .

Take your time .

I turn my heat up a little because I want this to , to a simmer really quickly .

Any chicken juices that you have should be put in there , not oil , but the juice that juice comes out of the chicken while it rests , that should be put in your sauce .

Do not waste that .

So we're gonna let this come to a simmer .

You'll see that it's starting to come to a boil .

And if you look at my bubbles here , my bubbles are really small and fine as you reduce things like chicken stock , you'll notice that it starts to get a little thicker and the bubbles get a little bit bigger and that'll tell you your sauce is getting to the right consistency .

Just watch the bubble at this point .

I'm gonna add just a pinch of salt .

I'm not gonna go crazy with the salt because we're reducing this .

If you season this all the way right now and then you reduce it .

It's gonna be way too salty .

A little salt , a little pepper and then we'll readjust later on when the sauce is close to being done , the sauce is reduced by half .

I add my butter and that's , that's what I want .

I want the butter to incorporate into the sauce at this point .

I'm making sure that I got everything off the bottom of the pan and then I'm just gonna mix it up so you can actually see my bubbles on the side getting bigger .

My sauce is getting thick thicker .

The butter emulsifies into the sauce and makes it creamy and delicious .

The classic French term for this is Monte A or to mount with butter .

I'm gonna adjust and lower my heat and let this go a little slower .

So you can see my sauce is starting to get thick .

But what I'm looking for is that nape consistency .

And if I put my spoon in there and I run my finger through , can still see that it's a little liquid .

It's not really sticking to my spoon , but I want this to kind of stick to my spoon and get a little thick .

Right .

So you can see we have considerably less liquid than we did earlier .

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn my heat on super low .

Uh I'm gonna hit it with some lemon juice .

One thing that I like to do is take the cut side and put it on my hand and when I squeeze , I squeeze towards my hand so that the seeds get trapped in between my hand and the lemon half .

I like to add the lemon juice at the end because I want to be fresh and bright .

I don't want really cooked lemon juice flavors just a little more seasoning salt and pepper .

I'm gonna swirl that around .

So the sauce is ready and this is what I'm looking for .

There's a lot less liquid in this pan , right ?

The sauce looks creamy .

It's thick .

I coat the back of my spoon .

I run my finger through , there's a very sharp line and you can see on either side the sauce is stuck to my spoon .

And what you can do now is add some parsley .

Parsley has had a really nice bright fresh flavor to it .

I like to add it right at the end .

Most people add parsley just for color .

I love the flavor .

But look at that .

See how much sauce we have .

It's not a lot but it's nice and thick .

It's got a nice creamy consistency and that's our pant sauce .

The pan sauce is done , the chicken is rested .

It is time to plate .

Now , I like to slice my chicken breast just to give it a little more visual peel so we can see the inside of it .

One thing that I always focus on here is this end piece .

No matter what I do , this end piece is gonna be a little dry .

So what I like to do is cut that chef snack .

Now with our chicken breast , I wanna slice on a nice long angle .

You can see inside it's not dry .

It's still got some bounce to it .

It's juicy and delicious .

Not overcooked .

I like to put the pan sauce on the bottom of the plate because if you take that pant sauce and put it on top , you're kind of hiding that nice browning that you did .

Not only that , it's kind of crispy and you're gonna take away that crispiness .

That's a chicken breast .

I wanna eat time to taste .

Let's get in there .

You can see that it's nice and soft and tender .

It is not dry .

And stringy .

Whenever I eat a chicken breast like this , the sauce is key mop up the sauce as much as you can .

By the end of this , your plate should be totally clean .

Chicken breast can be delicious .

It just takes a little technique .

A little bit of know how and patience it can be juicy .

I promise you .